Flag of the Deep Space Fleet

The tactical display projected by Amber Bdellium, Autumn Harvest’s Guardian, was in three dimensions, and could expand to focus on Autumn’s immediate location or expand to take in the local star system, the local sector, or up to the whole Ring of Stars. At the moment, Autumn was considering the layout of the entire Treaty Powers Expeditionary Fleet, which was anchored strategically in the *D.S.S. Nebular Dream*, 1,295 other Deep Space Stations, and their associated battle groups.

For Operation Bottleneck, Autumn had been assigned to assist her former command. The Kayai Pack had fielded fifty cubic phalanxes of a thousand *Rovers* each; *K.P. Rover 08745* was in the 8th Phalanx, as befitting its number. Each *Rover* had been assigned a Lightchild (usually a Fleetman, but sometimes a capable Starbard like Autumn) and his or her Guardian. This assignment had been on the recommendation of Chris Alan, who foresaw that the Treaty Fleet’s opponents would use a truly deep and deadly strategy against their foes.

The capital ships of the Deep Space Fleet and the Kayai Pack were few in number compared to their counterparts in some of the other allied fleets. One of the most formidable of these was the fleet manned by the Aletheia clones: every last one of them that was not employed in C Company on Cosmopolis or had not joined the Deep Space Fleet. Autumn was still staggered at the fact, but one had to consider the cause.

The new Hooded Man, John Barnabas, was proving to be far more “proactive” in dealing with the Metacosmic Realms than his great Predecessor had allowed Himself to be, yet he was so in his Predecessor’s name and with His backing. One of his first acts had been to visit the White Council of the Levanim and to call them to account for their surreptitious creation of Aletheia clones and cloning technology. First, he upbraided the White Council for their lack of faith in the Lord Davidson’s purposes, thereby potentially putting the entire quadrant on the brink of incomprehensible interstellar war – never mind what the other clones were about to do in the original Realm of the Levanim. Then, the Hooded Man acted as a pure *deus ex machina*, gathering together all the countless billions of Aletheia clones everywhere in both Realms and giving them ships to use in battle. These ships in fact were simply duplicates of what the Aletheias had been developing for their own use, versatile craft with air-sea-space capability and considerable firepower. Meanwhile, the clones’ various colonies here and there were simply erased – made to be as if they had never been; their raw materials were stockpiled in their former locations for future use.

Faced with *that* kind of supernatural power to intervene, and realizing that the Lord Davidson could’ve intervened in like manner at any time, the Levanim humbly surrendered to John Barnabas, and they sent out a general order for the Aletheias to do so as well. Aletheia C-3456 remained on the crew of the *Hind*, while her replacement (another of the older clones, Aletheia C-3577, who had a similar personality type) became the permanent head of C Company on Senka’ur. The rest of the Aletheias were here, all them, accompanying the Treaty Fleet.

By that time the Aletheias had occupied some twenty million star systems. On average, each star system had a million inhabitants, testimony to the unbelievable speed by which the combination of Covenant and T’h’l’khi hyper-tech could produce fully functional adult humanoids and habitats to house them. Thus, the Clone Fleet numbered no less than *two billion* battleship-carriers, each with a thousand crew members of various types. They were cannon fodder, and they knew it, but they also knew that they and their ships had been made for just that purpose.

The Suidae bred fast by natural means, and they had been at it for a long time. They had fielded no less than *three billion* Warboars from their densely populated home sector, each with a thousand battle-ready troops and accompanying ships. These too were cannon fodder, but like the Aletheias they looked forward to dying with their brand of honor intact. Even Autumn’s wide-ranging mind reeled at the implications of such numbers – and cringed at the ethics that would send such numbers to their almost-certain doom.

The Bruins were slow breeders and relatively reclusive as a species. They had sent one-tenth of their Hegemony’s home fleet: mostly Battlebears, even more powerful ship for ship than the Warboars. A hundred capital ships each from a thousand star systems still made for a hundred thousand ships: an impressive number, in almost any other conflict. The Bruins had no great love of either death or battle, but soldier for solider they had no equal among organic sentient beings, save only for the Lightchildren themselves.

There were other Treaty Powers that had fielded relatively much smaller forces. They felt honor-bound to try to protect a young Power that was at least Neutral and still faced the danger of attack. Theirs were volunteer forces, and typically the best that could be spared without sacrificing home security.

In the upcoming conflict’s “best-case scenario”, the idea would be to keep the Empress Crabs from setting foot on any planets if possible. Doing so would mean many, many soldiers would die without participating in individual fighting and thus using their talents and skills for the job, but the alternative would be messy indeed.

Autumn could only admire (after a fashion) the eagerness for battle that so many in the Treaty Fleet had by nature. Despite her experience in the Kayai Pack, she was fast losing her taste for battle of any kind. As an Inspirer, she was not only a natural seeker of global understanding, but naturally gifted at dealing with people one-on-one, recognizing and respecting their unique needs and values. As a Protector, Chris Alan was a natural diplomat of another sort, a planner for the future oriented toward group needs and values over those of any individual (including himself), and he was needed here against the Crabs and especially Nicholas Blackthorn for that very reason. Were Nicholas not a factor, Chris Alan likely would be with some of his fellow Starbards Level Five (including Spica Wheatstar, his old teacher) who even now were negotiating dirtside with the Nihekhi Colony so that it might take the step of faith required to come under the Lord Davidson’s protection and that of the Node Field.

At least some such protection was already in place, in addition to the Fence. Only one cubic sector remained open in the latter: the Bottleneck, where the Nihekhi Colony was, and where the Treaty Fleet now was also. Earlier the Treaty Fleet had passed through another sector of space: the Cork, it had been named, because it plugged the far end of the Bottleneck. There four more Nodelets had been moved to the four still-unoccupied corners of the sector, and the Node Field had been activated within that sector. The Cork thus stood between the Nihekhi Knot and the Nihekhi Colony. No Hostile Powers were native to the Cork, and those starships passing through that had been in danger of annihilation had been warned off (and sometimes escorted out of harm’s way). So now the Empress Crabs were well and truly trapped, and their Elemental overlords with them – although it seemed that they didn’t know it yet.

“Could the Crabs pass through an edge where two sectors meet?” Autumn had asked soon after the Cork had been set up.

“Maybe, if their ships could become dimensionless points – which they can’t,” Chris Alan had replied. “Nor can Nicholas and his Daimonae, for that matter, and for the same reason. My only worry – besides this upcoming battle – is whether some Crabs and Daimonae escaped our trap before it was sprung. The Realm Master hasn’t said.”

By comparison, the armed forces fielded by the Covenant Sphere and Annexes were very small. In all the Cube of Influence surrounding the Helios System (which Cube included the Sphere and Annexes proper and many outlying star clouds), there were 1,728 sectors, each of which was theoretically assigned a Sky Island by the Deep Space Fleet. Each Sky Island normally was accompanied by 12 *Cherub*-class Surveyors, 24 *Seraph*-class Warriors and many *Gazelles*, *Ravens* and other, relatively small craft. The 432 Sky Islands that served the sectors in the Ring’s galactic plane remained in place, but the 1,296 that were assigned to relatively empty space had joined the Treaty Fleet, and they had their full complements of Warriors (although not always all their Surveyors) with them. These few thousands of ships, manned mostly by Lightchildren, were worth many times their number relative to both their friends and their enemies; and with both John Barnabas and Chris Alan Starbright on their side, the Deep Space Ships’ worth in the upcoming battle was incalculable.

“Now isn’t the time for you to exercise life-and-death power over countless billions of billions of organic lives,” John Barnabas had told Chris Alan reassuringly. “That’s *my* task and that of the other Lightchildren, including the Starbards now negotiating with the Colony. *Your* task, and that of Amethyst with you, is to deal with Nicholas Blackthorn. Aside from me, you, Raphael and Amethyst are the only ones among us who can.”

During the upcoming battle, Bakbuk would be the Acting Captain of the *Hind of the Dawn*, and as such given full independence of action to aid wherever he and his crew were most needed. Aletheia C-3456, Slate Rockmire, Trana Rastajar, Hilo and Bak’ka Gr’rek would assist him. Sledge Hammerstrike, Bakbuk’s Guardian and Acting First Officer, would provide the shielding and operate both helm and navigation. Aletheia would man the weapons; Trana the Nihekhi would man the sensors; Bak’ka the Bruin would monitor the communications station. Slate would be the Acting Engineer, as usual, but the *Hind’s* systems were so reliable that he felt it unlikely that his services would be needed. Rather, he and Hilo (his Acting Assistant) relished the high probability that they’d be sent into the melee to exercise their Elemental powers. Maybe they’d get to take a Habitat apart from the inside out, or more than one. Wouldn’t *that* surprise their foes!

A soft musical tone interrupted Autumn’s thoughts. “Autumn,” said Amber, “incoming message from Chris Alan Starbright.” Chris Alan was presently on the bridge of the *Nebular Dream*.

“Yes, Alan?” Autumn asked as Amber projected Chris Alan’s scaled-down image.

“Here’s the latest report. While we’ve been moving into position, the Octagonal Array’s been following mass ship movements within the Consortium. Many seem to have run into the Fence in all directions before they were aware of its presence. The troubling thing is that many impacts weren’t preceded by signals indicating the existence of ships. This implies that the Crabs are masking the signatures of their matrix drives.”

“You mean by using temporal-phase cloaking technology, like that used by the Fleet’s *Raven*-class?”

“Yes. Nothing else we know of could mask those signatures so completely.”

In fact the intelligence-gathering *Ravens* were no longer unique in using such cloaks; they were now standard on all Fleet ships, from *Gazelle II*-class couriers like the *Hind of the Dawn* up to *Melekh*-class Sky Islands. A temporal-phase cloak slightly randomized the exact position of an object in local space-time, keeping others that were not on the exact same randomization pattern from tracking it. The trouble was that such cloaks used a great deal of energy, and also made a ship’s own sensors much harder to use.

“Then there could be cloaked ships in the Bottleneck right now and we wouldn’t know it?”

“Unknown to all but the Realm Master, yes – and more might’ve escaped before the Fence was turned on, if he allowed it to happen. I get the feeling that he’s not out to completely exterminate the T’h’l’khim – although he’ll annihilate every sentient being in Consortium space, if he decides to invert the projection of the Fence.”

“You think he might really do that?”

“He might. He seems really determined to bring peace to the Ring of Stars, by overwhelming force if necessary. I have to wonder why the Lord Davidson isn’t doing that Himself.”

“I’m sure He has His reasons, Alan, and *you’re* probably one of them. And speaking of overwhelming force, you take care when Nicholas Blackthorn shows up. When, not if; he has to know you’re here by now.”

“I’ll be careful. I know better than to underestimate him, and vice versa. Amethyst and I will keep his hands tied as best we can.”